as for my reform ideas, i would like to see tax deductions or refunds for fitness level. then i would completely eliminate the deductions for having a crapload of kids (to stem /reverse population growth) and then let you have it back if your dependents/ kids AND yourself meet the standards...or something like that. japans system is a tad brutal but it looks like they are really figuring it out
it doesn't help that we essentially subsidize shitty food
As long as we can get corporate lobbyists out of the decision making process we'll be relatively fine. many of our problems stem this pandering to corporations. The rest of them stem from stupidity and pandering to demographics. Did the founding fathers not see this coming, or is there no way to prevent it?
Well, if our politicians actually followed the Constitution, it wouldn't be a problem because they wouldn't have the power to do anything for them anyway. The catch is, how do We the People enforce the Constitution?
BTW - readers of these posts should take note of a couple of REAL important things. Shanedk has never once called me an ignorant twat, he's never deleted a post, and he's come back with substantive rebuttals to my arguments. That, my friends, is how it's done.
Cheers man - I may not agree with you, but people who are passionate about this country and are smart enough to debate their points with real substance are pure gold - and that means the next beer's on me.
shanedk - I think I've pinned down our difference - see what you think. You believe in the market. I don't. I've watched my Betamax vanish, my Amiga orphaned, and the world's worst operating system become the world's most popular. People who work in a town that produces clothing go to WalMart and buy Chinese shirts - then wonder where their jobs went. We hate illegal immigrants but hire them by the millions. You have faith in the market while I think "there's a sucker born every minute".
Damn skippy. We need to take a giant free-market step forward - to the 1800s when the robber-barons ruled, and the peasant worker serfs knew their place. None of that crap government interference, like OSHA - do it like Amour in his packing plants did - if you stopped work for something as trivial as a detached finger you got fired. Man, those free-market days were the best. I found out how great our private system is when my son got cancer at seven. Hint: not that great.
shanedk - first of all, I'm a huge fan of yours, but until you've seen the belly of the beast from the inside, it's easy to believe in free-market magic for medical care. I did the right things. I worked hard, had a real (non-HMO) policy from a major carrier. I ended up selling my home to save my son. The very first medical claim was denied - why? They claimed it was a preexisting condition. I paid on that policy for four years prior to my son's diagnosis.
Burkitt's lymphoma is savagely fast in kids - no way it had been a preexisting condition hidden for four years. Next they challenged the diagnosis because it presented in his tonsil (hint: tonsils are part of the lymph system). Next they denied because he was on an experimental protocol. Also not true - he was, as most cancer patients are, in a study group, but his half of the study group used an older protocol.
In the meantime, I'm visiting with the hospital "financial counselor" whose council was "find money or get out". Getting your insurance company to pay for sutures is easy - but you don't know that something's seriously wrong with the system until something goes seriously wrong - and I give you every prayer that an atheist can give that nothing like that goes that wrong for you and your family. Was I an anomaly? A statistical fluke? In talking to the other parent, no.
That's WITHOUT getting into how much we can rely on you to accurately place the blame for your experience. It's obvious to me you're going with your bias. With all the stuff I've needed, it's ALWAYS been treat now, worry about payment later. Every case like yours that I've been able to verify has turned out to be wrong.
The other parents, regardless of their policy and company (mine was Blue Cross, by the way, and I'm not shy about broadcasting that) had the same experiences. Is the free market model useful? Of course. Fire is useful. Nuclear power is useful. But fire, without control is an absolute disaster.
We have seen the results of unchecked, unregulated capitalism, and it doesn't say much good about human nature and greed.
Well, first of all, that comment applied to the joys of the 1800s, when we found out first-hand what unchecked capitalism could do for us, but it's also fair to note that the healthcare industry is also one of the most heavily lobbied and loopholed industries out there. There's the "appearance" of regulation - good for the voters - then there's the reality.
"when we found out first-hand what unchecked capitalism could do for us,"
You mean, affordable heating, the telephone, mass communication, electricity, artificial lighting, computers, the canning and freezing of food, accessibility for the handicapped, textiles, baby formula, typewriters, elevators, refrigerators, water purification, (cont'd)
photography, the Yale lock, the vacuum cleaner, toilet paper, linotype, modern architectural and engineering concepts, pens, pencils, anesthetics, surgery, blood transfusions, stethoscopes, music and sound recording, X-Rays, and many others?
Yeah, how horrible the world has been with all of that!!!
And it's all thanks to those "robber barons" that you so despise.
Yep, because for goodness sake - we could never have had any of those things by ensuring decent working conditions, fair wages and all those other nasty things the free marketeers dislike so much. Unless you let the greedy grab as much power as they can, and unless you treat the workers like pond scum, there's just no possible way any of those things could have happened. That's probably why there have been no significant technological advances in the last half-century, right?
"Decent" and "fair" by whose standards? Their working conditions and wages were much better than what they had before. If they weren't, they wouldn't have worked there and would have kept doing what they were doing before. You sit on your ivory tower constructed by the sacrifices of many (and yes, that includes the so-called "robber barons") while snubbing your nose at those very same people. That makes you an elitist snob.
Decent and fair - bah humbug. I think Dickens might have liked you. You have called me an ivory tower elitist, while being unable to deny that treating workers better in the last half-century has evidently not stopped the wheels of progress - indeed, it seems that we have made more progress in the last few decades than in the whole of your glorious nineteenth century.
"while being unable to deny that treating workers better in the last half-century has evidently not stopped the wheels of progress"
I've never even TRIED to deny it--that's part of what progress IS!!! My WHOLE POINT was that you cannot judge what they did by our standards today. Think of people living in 2108 and how they might think of our conditions now!
But you call THIS progress? Record deficits? Record inflation? Record taxation? Our BEST economic years grow at a FRACTION of the rate they did in the 1800s! The progress we've made is because of the FREE MARKET, NOT because of government. Government just steps in to take the credit, hoping people will be as ignorant and gullible as you are.
That's just a teeeny bit disingenuous, don't you think? You want to compare eras when it's convenient to your argument, but shy away when it's not - a reasonable tactic, but unlikely to deceive many who visit your otherwise excellent channel. The "gains" of the 1800s were hugely due to tapping unexploited natural resources - from the 49ers to the Glenpool oil fields to the timber - all about as attributable to economic genius as walking through a bank vault and picking up stray cash.
"You want to compare eras when it's convenient to your argument, but shy away when it's not"
When have I shied away from it? I've only "shied away" from making value judgements about it. There's a difference between making valid examinations about the rate of economic growth and making value judgements.
Okay: if the free market is so terrible and socialism is so wonderful, why have computers become so much more powerful and so much cheaper, given that the computer industry is almost completely unregulated? Why is it only these heavily regulated industries where these supposed problems of the free market show up?
Words in my mouth my friend. I'll clarify. Pure socialists are as naive as pure free marketeers. Both assume a human ideal that reality and history just don't justify. Free marketeers assume that as CEO of a car company, that I will have the decency to spend $12 per unit fixing a bad muffler bracket so when you're hit by a drunk driver, that bracket won't rip open a gas tank and incinerate your family. But that's not the case. When the dollar is the only value, your fammily doesn't matter to me.
"Both assume a human ideal that reality and history just don't justify."
The free market assumes NO human ideal. That's a Socialist LIE. The free market is an evolutionary process of bottom-up organization, and the Socialists are just like the Creationists in that they just cannot accept this happening without a top-down authority to control it.
Where's the lie, shanedk? You propose that the best we can do is social darwinism, the law of the jungle, red in tooth in fang. I would contend that real natural darwinism has given us a better brain and keener sense of the social contract, and that you are, in some degree, socialist, and that the matter up for debate is just how socialist you are. Do you propose to dig and pave your own roads, for example?
Oh, I've heard it for years: "The free market assumes that people will be 100% good and rational all the time." It's NOT true. It's not even MOSTLY true. It only "assumes" that people tend to act as they are incentivized to act. And that seems pretty much a tautology.
"When the dollar is the only value, your fammily doesn't matter to me."
Then explain why practically every electronic device made in the last 100+ years was certified for safety at the manufacturers' expense by UL or some other similar body, even when there were no government regulations whatsoever.
(thanks for copying my "fammily" typo verbatim ;-)
The UL is actually a great case - every crackpot out there was making dangerous electrical devices. Houses were burning down and people were getting electrocuted. Only when staring down the barrel of impending legislation did it suddenly become a great idea to start policing their own industry. Legislation doesn't have to be enacted to be a powerful deterrent and regulatory force - one that the free marketeers would deny.
"Only when staring down the barrel of impending legislation"
WHAT impending legislation? This was BEFORE the Progressive Era! It started as a result of what was shown in the Chicago World's Fair and someone saw a profit motive for it. (Yes, the UL--GASP!!--makes a profit!)
Computers are more powerful and cheaper for two very different reasons. Reason one (more powerful) is that we still have a development edge - barely. But that development will continue long after our children have been dumbed down by creationist classrooms - just in other countries. Reason two of cheaper is that we don't regulate - freeing companies to put American production on parity with third-world workers. You can't buy a cheaper computer when your job's been outsourced to Indonesia.
Interesting thing is, NO insurance company EVER denied coverage for a pre-existing condition before the Federal government started meddling in health care!
You can't look at a problem CAUSED by government meddling and say that the cure is MORE government meddling!
About a year and a half ago, I was hit by a drunk driver. My kids and I were hospitalized and my wife killed. Since then, I've had to do through five different surgeries and continuous physical therapy. So don't tell me I don't know anything about it.
You ALWAYS know someone is being bogus when they resort to their personal experience rather than the data.
I called your CONCLUSIONS bogus because they're based on sloppy thinking, as I have elucidated. If you don't want to consider that, then that's your problem, not mine. So don't try to make it MY character flaw.
shanedk, you're clearly a good and decent man - but you believe in human decency far more than I have ever had reason to. I am utterly convinced that there are sociopaths, people utterly lacking in anything we would call decency, who would have absolutely no problem with you and your children dying if it made for a better quarterly stock statement - and that's the cream that the pure free market model rises to the top.
What you BELIEVE is irrelevant. There's only what the evidence shows. But your admittedly misanthropic mindset explains quite well how you've come to this fallacious reasoning, and how you've come to regard government as the solution to all our problems even with the profoundly pathetic track record it has.
Uh, no, they didn't. In fact, they EXEMPTED themselves from it. Same in Canada, the UK, and other countries. The politicians want US to have that kind of system, but THEY don't want any part of it.
"In 2000, the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare ended with no agreement on a proposal to reform Medicare along lines similar to the FEHBP plans. The so-called "premium support" model would essentially privatize Medicare...Senator John Breaux (D-LA) introduced legislation in 2001 to reform Medicare along these lines but it remains in committee."
They also force us into Social Security, while exempting themselves and giving themselves a lucrative pension scheme. When they talk about Socialized Medicine or other Socialist programs, they don't mean for THEM; they're talking about "you people."
This idea is just like the Fair Tax, one of the best ideas ever to see the Congressional floor, but it'll never happen the governmental already has too much control to let it happen, sorry to be pessimist...
Actually, the Fair Tax is a terrible fraud, because (despite claims to the contrary) it DOESN'T repeal the Income Tax and is HORRIBLY regressive.
We can repeal the Income Tax and replace it with NOTHING, as long as we get the government back to its Constitutional functions. Without the Income Tax, the government would still have the revenues it did in 1998.
Sounds great. One hidden problem is charity care. If you don't have insurance and walk into a hospital bleeding to death they are obliged to help you. Even if you have no way of paying. A HUGE number of hospital cases are charity care. To keep hospitals from going bankrupt the government funds this care. It is a secret hidden tax on us. If we could make health care more affordable, more people would have it, charity care would go way down, and it would actually save us money.
Well, before the 1960s when government started meddling in health care, we had free clinics and charity hospitals everywhere. Charity care wasn't the problem then that it is now.
This bill will probably help ease the cost of charity care, but it won't be a solution for it. But that's no reason to not support the bill.
Insurance for a family of four runs about $400/month (you can probably get it cheaper by economizing). But look at your paycheck: how much are they taking out per month in taxes? With this plan in effect, you'd just tell your employer to withhold $400 less each month. Then, next April, you'd claim the credit and not owe the taxes.
(Actually, you could do that now, they'd just hit you with the tax bill next April.)
If what you claim is true (and yes, I will look at it for myself, I'm just at work and responding on my breaks) that sounds ALMOST like socialized medicine, but with a capitalist twist.
As you've presented it, I like it, but of course I need to read the actual language it is written in.
I'd agree with you gabala. I can afford healthcare. Heck, I don't even need insurance because MOST health related issues I could pay for in full and it not put much of a dent in my net worth. But it would devistate most of my employees. I pay for their insurance in full. How would this law would work against them because I might release them from my companies heath insurance because they would get the tax credits.
In fact, if you think about it, doing this should cut down your administrative costs greatly as you're no longer dealing with a third party, so if anything you should be able to give them a raise!
I would still need to cover them with insurance plus the administrative cost of paying into another heath savings plan. My administrative cost would not decrease. Also note that corporations rarely work that way. If a company saves money, it does not pass that savings on to the employees, it goes to profits often to appease shareholders.
Not if they buy it themselves from their medical savings account. Even absent that, I would have LOVED to have had the choice where I worked to get the $850/month extra and buy my own insurance.
"If a company saves money, it does not pass that savings on to the employees, it goes to profits often to appease shareholders."
That may be more true for the big corporations, but I doubt it's true for the smaller companies.
They can already pay into a medical cost plan that they can use on medical expenses tax free in addition to what I pay in insurance. If I'm paying $15000 a month on my employee health saving instead of insurance and an employee needs a cancer treatment, it would not be enough to cover the cost. I would still need to get insurance to cover them.
But if this bill passes, they'd be able to use the money in the account to buy insurance. And they'd probably get it a lot cheaper than you can. The last job I worked at, the insurance they got cost $850 a month. Now, I have comparable insurance for less than $300/mo. The employer plans have to be one-size-fits-all, which is incredibly inefficient.
The only thing I see gained. And it's a good gain, it the ability for the employee themselves to be more flexible with their insurance companies. I'm not convinced it will drive down costs as the more people I get on a single plan, the cheaper my per captia expense.
Thanks gabala. I run a very different type of company. Our books are open, we don't even have hierarchies, and we don't have sick days or vacation, just take what you want when you want it. We are all responsible grown ups here. It wouldn't work well for most companies but mine consists of extremely well educated people and it works very well for the company. But at the moment, we are not in Vegas but we have conferences there.
I can too... at least the hierarchy. The open books would last quite a bit longer but the choose your own day should scale indefinitely. However, if my company grows to the point of needing closed books, it's time to scale down the business. In addition, if we out grow the hierarchy, it would put up red flags that we are growing to the point where quality would start to be effected and we need to scale down and increase prices significantly.
Shane, this has degenerated quickly. I am not interested in you shouting at me in caps, calling me a socialist (or other names) and refusing to listen to or comprehend what I am saying. I am not arguing or "debating" this issue; I am trying to have a discussion with a person I thought was reasonable, but you are consistently avoiding my points and making "baseless assertions" of your own.
Save your vitriol and keep your condescension: I have no need for any of it.
I am NOT calling you names. I am trying to point out the problems with your claims, which you haven't done the first thing to substantiate. Apparently you can't separate that from a personal attack.
My assertions are NOT baseless. I have the EVIDENCE behind what I say. Those studies are REAL. The only thing you seem to be able to do is deny the evidence.
Nice to see someone speak so clearly. Just like with the military industrial complex, health care has been set up to line the pockets of corporate bodies with tax payer money...
I wish I could do something to help you out, but without being a US citizen I don't have a representative to pressure...
I hope that this "Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act" will be ratified -- just to get the chance to observe the differences to our German "Gesundheitssystem" we are having trouble financing.
Are there already live cases of a working health care free market anywhere in the world?
The closest is the US before the government started meddling. Insurance was one of the lower monthly bills for families, there were no such things as "preexisting conditions," and free clinics and charity hospitals were everywhere.
Recently a Dutch member of government went to Harlem, NY to gain ideas on how to improve sloppy neighbourhoods in a short time. She really gained ideas and I support the initiative. I think US members of government should come to Holland to see how universal health care can and does work.
The important thing is that the poor of Holland can get needed healthcare. It is all a matter of prioritization:
Emergency procedures like by-pass can happen immediately, while nonemergency procedures like like fixing knees can be put on the backburner for a few months.
Holland is a free country, so the rich could go to a private hospital to get their knees fixed the next day, if they do not want to wait. Indeed, the rich can even have elective cosmetic surgery, at their own expense.
"Emergency procedures like by-pass can happen immediately, while nonemergency procedures like like fixing knees can be put on the backburner for a few months."
Again, that would have meant me completely losing the use of my right arm. It came close enough as it was. I'm GLAD I could get the surgery relatively quickly. And no, I'm NOT rich, nor do I have good insurance.
The point is that you could go private for your low priority-procedure, which is what you must have done since we do not have universal healthcare. Only the poor or cheap would have to wait months while emergency procedures have their emergency procedures firstly.
For the poor, eventually getting nonemergency medical procedures is better than not getting it at all. ¿Have you ever had to hobble around on a probably broken ankle for months until it healed by itself, without medical care?
No, and neither has anyone else. It's a crime to withhold emergency treatment (like for broken bones) in this country for inability to pay. Did you not know that?
If I would break mine ankle again, I would. I got a bill for 2k$ for that. I cannot afford that. If it would happen again, I would put on the 200$-brace made of cheap plastic, made in Mexico I got last time and hobble around until it heals.
By the way, this would make a great anticreationvideo:
Human ankles are unintelligently designed. The are easy to sprain and break. It would be better to fuse the tarsals into a simple hinge-joint like the dinosauria. Just look at the ankle of an Ostrich.
It is a good idea, but insufficient. we need a social safety-net. It would not help people like me:
I am uninsurable. No HMO will take me. I have a pre-existing condition. I am diabetic. If I would have an heart-attack and need immediate bypass or die within a week, I would die. It is that simple.
Imagine an optional tax of 5% of income going into a medical care for the opt-ins. That would be like insurance that cannot reject people for pre-existing conditions. I could get my by-pass.
"I am uninsurable. No HMO will take me. I have a pre-existing condition."
Did you know that "preexisting conditions" were unheard of until government started meddling in health care? Then the prices started going way up, so insurance companies could no longer afford it.
If we change the laws to force insurers to take everyone and charge them all the same and carryout medical procedures doctors deem necessary, then I am for it.
Actually, that would just make everything cost MORE. You're removing the incentive to economize even further. That's what's gotten us into this mess to begin with!
If you cannot force the insurer to insure people with pre-existing conditions, it will not. an opt-in tax 5% of income for the uninsured would cover the uninsurable.
The fact is tens of millions of working people would have to fend for themselves, under the proposed system. Your system is great for people without pre-existing conditions, but leaves double-digit percents of the US-population behind.
It will never be profitable for the insurers to insure everyone. Healthcare is a basic human right. If one does not have good health, one has nothing. Allowing those who cannot get insurance to place 5% of their income into an opt-in healthcare-fund would close the whole in the safety-net. ¿Why do you oppose letting the uninsurable do this? It would not hurt you.
"It will never be profitable for the insurers to insure everyone."
They came VERY close to it before the government started meddling.
"Allowing those who cannot get insurance to place 5% of their income into an opt-in healthcare-fund"
They'd be MUCH better off putting that money in the account mentioned above where they'd get the interest. They could then get a major medical with special dispensation for any preexisting conditions, pay for the rest out of the account, and come out WAY ahead.
It absolutely would help millions of them. Pretending otherwise in the face of the evidence is just disingenuous. And as I said, this won't cost the taxpayers a PENNY.
It is like home-insurance versus an emergency-account (EA):
My parents made payments to the insurance for almost 30 years until a fire cause ~ 20K$ in damage. They could have put that money into an (EA). ¿Why did they not? Because they wanted to rebuild if something bad would happen no matter when the bad thing happened. If that fire would have happened the first year and destroyed the house, an (EA) would have done them no good because it would have very little money at that time.
That would be the purpose of the major medical. Get one with a high deductible and it's pretty cheap. Then you just keep at least the deductible amount in your savings account.
The more the price goes down, the fewer people will be uninsurable. That's what you need to understand. It's government intervention that's made the price skyrocket. We need to reverse that.
¿Can you guarantee that everyone will be insured? If you can I am for it. I just cannot imagine a uninsured member of the working poor, with cancer, diabetes, and heartdisease getting insurance the day after this bill becomes law. Honestly, ¿do you?
No one can guarantee anything. A LOT of people get left out in Socialized Medicine, too. But it would be a lot cheaper, and as I said before government meddling we had free clinics and charity hospitals everywhere, so people who couldn't get insurance still had options.
> "A LOT of people get left out in Socialized Medicine, too."
¿Do you have a citation for this? I know that healthcare is prioritized so that people needing emergency heartsurgery can get it immediately, but people needing hip-replacement must wait a few months. The important thing is that people even poor people get emergency-bypasses, and people even poor people eventually get new hips.
There are LOTS of cases! If you haven't seen any, you haven't done your research. Look at the 20/20 special, "Sick in America," or look at the website nomorewaiting dot info.
It isn't "prioritized"--they all do that, it's called "triage"--it's RATIONED. And yes, in this country, the poor DO get the emergency bypasses and other treatments. IT'S AGAINST THE LAW TO DO OTHERWISE. I've already told you that, and here you are making the same wrong claim again.
> "It isn't "prioritized"--they all do that, it's called "triage"--it's RATIONED. "
Nothing is wrong with rationing scarce resources. The rich can still get their facelifts if they pay for them. socialized medicine saved tens of million of english from sexual genital mutilation. If people want medically unnecessary procedure like facelifts, they should pay for them themselves. People should be forbidden from mutilating children.
> "If it's an emergency procedure, they HAVE to provide it BY LAW."
> "Now, knock off the misinformation! Go do some research and inform yourself."
I have never heard about free cancer or heart-surgery. I know that those who cannot pay, die. I know that hospitals dump patients who cannot pay. EMTALA merely says that they have to stabilize. After stabilization, the hospital tries to transfer the patient. Usually, the patient dies. Basically, the patient waits until the patient dies.
"I know that those who cannot pay, die. I know that hospitals dump patients who cannot pay."
Bogus scare tactics. They do all they can for people like that. And if we stop the bogus government intervention that makes those kinds of treatments scarce, they'd be able to do MUCH more.
>> "Nothing is wrong with rationing scarce resources."
> "But it doesn't NEED to be scarce! That's the point! How scarce are computers or DVD players?"
If one's insurance-company covers facelifts whenever one wants, one's bill payments will be huge. It makes since that one should only fund medically necessary procedure. If one wants at be a Michael Jackson, one should pay for one's facelifts out of pocket.
One of the problems is that it comes in the form of a tax refund. Most people that need the health reform can't afford to pay for the medical treatment because they are living pay check to pay check. The client health anomaly would essentially be untreatable for most of society. If a person is making 40k per year, and they are hit for a surgery that costs them 20k, a tax refund is not going to take care of it.
But since it would allow EVERYONE who cannot currently afford insurance and who has no other option (such as Medicare) to afford it, then they WOULD be on insurance and they could then pay for it.
["Providing a tax credit does not somehow put hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in a person's pocket each month."]
"Actually, it does exactly that!"
Except that it doesn't. Tax deductions/credits cost America money in lost revenue (so, in a sense, you're still subsidizing it), and the money doesn't materialize for most taxpayers monthly when it's needed to pay insurance premiums. At best, you're going to subsidize those who already have insurance and the ones without are no better off.
"Tax deductions/credits cost America money in lost revenue"
Socialist twaddle. It's saying that people get to keep more of THEIR money that THEY worked to earn to pay for their own health care. It's incredibly dishonest to say that that's somehow taking money from the rest of us.
What problem do you have with MILLIONS of people being able to afford health insurance who can't now?
I am VERY well versed in economics. And your idea is 100% Socialist, whether you realize it or not. Saying that letting people keep more of their money instead of taxing them is the equivalent of taking money from "society" is absolutely 100% Socialist.
"What problem do you have with MILLIONS of people being able to afford health insurance who can't now?"
I believe you're the one who has to answer that question.
I've already listed several points why HR3343 wouldn't lead to "MILLIONS" (emphasis in original) more people being able to afford health insurance. You are talking about a subsidy for those that have insurance while those without are left unable to afford the investment to get your "credit".
I don't know alot about this insurance stuff, or the words you used in the video, but I do know how the program could put many into the people's pockets as you said, based on the video's content.
You said people would keep the interest, (lots more money for us), would lower prices (even more money for us) and up quality (less chance of complications, less time spend going through the hoops of standard insurance, for less money lost).
Why don't you look at Socialized Medicine (which is all UHC is) objectively? Look at the long wait times for medical procedures, the people who have to come to America for health care or DIE, or even just look at the rationing that's already taking place under Medicare/Medicaid.
"You can't compare foreign countries' health care to ours."
Dishonest avoidance of the issue. These countries USE UHC--the very same system the politicians want to foist on us now. And they DON'T want to do that because it benefits US, but because it benefits THEM.
"These countries USE UHC--the very same system the politicians want to foist on us now."
Democracy in the U.S. does not work the same as democracy in other countries. UHC would follow the same principles, but would not have the same effects. The US healthcare system is fundamentally different than Holland, Britain, or Canada. If you don't admit that, you are either being obtuse, overly simplistic or willfully ignorant.
"And they DON'T want to do that because it benefits US, but because it benefits THEM."
Prove it. This is conspiracy nonsense.
UHC benefits the lower class who can't afford health care and the growing segment of the middle class who can't afford it and aren't covered under the woefully inadequate Medicaid. It could be funded for a fraction of the cost of the war (not a fair comparison, I know) and the savings in overhead for a single payer system would drastically improve efficiency.
No, it's not; it's just politics. But it's common for people with absolutely nothing to back up their insanity to wrongly mislabel something a "conspiracy theory."
Politicians advocate policies that benefit politicians. It happens ALL the time, and there's NOTHING conspiratorial about it. You're either completely brainwashed or you're an unashamed liar.
We already get tax credit for significant medical related expenses. It doesn't help much if the expense must be paid in advanced or if the expense goes beyond taxable income. Insurance companies would still have to take up that slack by taking money from the collective.
Yes it is a deduction... Yes, it would make 'some' of us less dependent on them. But I still do not see how it would aid the people that need it the most.
how would hilary lose on the deal?
as for my reform ideas, i would like to see tax deductions or refunds for fitness level. then i would completely eliminate the deductions for having a crapload of kids (to stem /reverse population growth) and then let you have it back if your dependents/ kids AND yourself meet the standards...or something like that. japans system is a tad brutal but it looks like they are really figuring it out
it doesn't help that we essentially subsidize shitty food
theeyeisblind 2 years ago
Everytime I think about the fact that I voted for Obama I want to smash my balls in with a hammer!
hanzo138 2 years ago 3
Same here. X_X
I should have voted for Ron Paul, or at least Bob Barr.
Surhotchaperchlorome 2 years ago
This sounds good!
I think here in Canada it should be considered.
Jotto999 2 years ago
It sounds like a special privatization of health accounts idea. Interesting.
Surhotchaperchlorome 3 years ago
Solution: Destroy all healthcare lobbyists.
MottomoShiroi 3 years ago 9
Or alternately: destroy all politicians who pander to healthcare lobbyists.
shanedk 3 years ago
As long as we can get corporate lobbyists out of the decision making process we'll be relatively fine. many of our problems stem this pandering to corporations. The rest of them stem from stupidity and pandering to demographics. Did the founding fathers not see this coming, or is there no way to prevent it?
MottomoShiroi 3 years ago 5
Well, if our politicians actually followed the Constitution, it wouldn't be a problem because they wouldn't have the power to do anything for them anyway. The catch is, how do We the People enforce the Constitution?
shanedk 3 years ago
Re: healthcare lobbyists.
Reminds me of how HTWW talks about how they lobby against socialized medicine, but it sounds like they also lobby FOR corporatism.
I like how he leaves that out...
Surhotchaperchlorome 2 years ago
BTW - readers of these posts should take note of a couple of REAL important things. Shanedk has never once called me an ignorant twat, he's never deleted a post, and he's come back with substantive rebuttals to my arguments. That, my friends, is how it's done.
47f0 3 years ago
Absolutely! This has been great!
shanedk 3 years ago
Cheers man - I may not agree with you, but people who are passionate about this country and are smart enough to debate their points with real substance are pure gold - and that means the next beer's on me.
47f0 3 years ago 2
shanedk - I think I've pinned down our difference - see what you think. You believe in the market. I don't. I've watched my Betamax vanish, my Amiga orphaned, and the world's worst operating system become the world's most popular. People who work in a town that produces clothing go to WalMart and buy Chinese shirts - then wonder where their jobs went. We hate illegal immigrants but hire them by the millions. You have faith in the market while I think "there's a sucker born every minute".
47f0 3 years ago
"I've watched my Betamax vanish, my Amiga orphaned, and the world's worst operating system become the world's most popular."
As have I. But that's how it goes.
But don't you still have the choice? 50% of my computers don't have a lick of Microsoft software on them.
"People who work in a town that produces clothing go to WalMart and buy Chinese shirts - then wonder where their jobs went."
It's over-regulation that sent their jobs overseas, not the free market.
shanedk 3 years ago
So Microsoft is NOT a monopoly then.
Surhotchaperchlorome 2 years ago
"We hate illegal immigrants"
I don't.
"I think "there's a sucker born every minute"."
Yes, and politicians absolutely exploit this every chance they get.
shanedk 3 years ago
Damn skippy. We need to take a giant free-market step forward - to the 1800s when the robber-barons ruled, and the peasant worker serfs knew their place. None of that crap government interference, like OSHA - do it like Amour in his packing plants did - if you stopped work for something as trivial as a detached finger you got fired. Man, those free-market days were the best. I found out how great our private system is when my son got cancer at seven. Hint: not that great.
47f0 3 years ago
Heh.
See, people? THIS is the kind of socialist misinformation we have to deal with.
Who here can name all of the fallacies committed?
shanedk 3 years ago
shanedk - first of all, I'm a huge fan of yours, but until you've seen the belly of the beast from the inside, it's easy to believe in free-market magic for medical care. I did the right things. I worked hard, had a real (non-HMO) policy from a major carrier. I ended up selling my home to save my son. The very first medical claim was denied - why? They claimed it was a preexisting condition. I paid on that policy for four years prior to my son's diagnosis.
cont...
cont...
47f0 3 years ago
...cont
Burkitt's lymphoma is savagely fast in kids - no way it had been a preexisting condition hidden for four years. Next they challenged the diagnosis because it presented in his tonsil (hint: tonsils are part of the lymph system). Next they denied because he was on an experimental protocol. Also not true - he was, as most cancer patients are, in a study group, but his half of the study group used an older protocol.
cont...
47f0 3 years ago
...cont
In the meantime, I'm visiting with the hospital "financial counselor" whose council was "find money or get out". Getting your insurance company to pay for sutures is easy - but you don't know that something's seriously wrong with the system until something goes seriously wrong - and I give you every prayer that an atheist can give that nothing like that goes that wrong for you and your family. Was I an anomaly? A statistical fluke? In talking to the other parent, no.
cont...
47f0 3 years ago
n=2. Statistical significance: 0.
That's WITHOUT getting into how much we can rely on you to accurately place the blame for your experience. It's obvious to me you're going with your bias. With all the stuff I've needed, it's ALWAYS been treat now, worry about payment later. Every case like yours that I've been able to verify has turned out to be wrong.
shanedk 3 years ago
...cont
The other parents, regardless of their policy and company (mine was Blue Cross, by the way, and I'm not shy about broadcasting that) had the same experiences. Is the free market model useful? Of course. Fire is useful. Nuclear power is useful. But fire, without control is an absolute disaster.
We have seen the results of unchecked, unregulated capitalism, and it doesn't say much good about human nature and greed.
47f0 3 years ago
How on EARTH is our current healthcare system "unchecked, unregulated capitalism"??? It is THE most heavily regulated industry there is!!!
shanedk 3 years ago
Well, first of all, that comment applied to the joys of the 1800s, when we found out first-hand what unchecked capitalism could do for us, but it's also fair to note that the healthcare industry is also one of the most heavily lobbied and loopholed industries out there. There's the "appearance" of regulation - good for the voters - then there's the reality.
47f0 3 years ago
"when we found out first-hand what unchecked capitalism could do for us,"
You mean, affordable heating, the telephone, mass communication, electricity, artificial lighting, computers, the canning and freezing of food, accessibility for the handicapped, textiles, baby formula, typewriters, elevators, refrigerators, water purification, (cont'd)
shanedk 3 years ago
photography, the Yale lock, the vacuum cleaner, toilet paper, linotype, modern architectural and engineering concepts, pens, pencils, anesthetics, surgery, blood transfusions, stethoscopes, music and sound recording, X-Rays, and many others?
Yeah, how horrible the world has been with all of that!!!
And it's all thanks to those "robber barons" that you so despise.
shanedk 3 years ago
Yep, because for goodness sake - we could never have had any of those things by ensuring decent working conditions, fair wages and all those other nasty things the free marketeers dislike so much. Unless you let the greedy grab as much power as they can, and unless you treat the workers like pond scum, there's just no possible way any of those things could have happened. That's probably why there have been no significant technological advances in the last half-century, right?
47f0 3 years ago
"Decent" and "fair" by whose standards? Their working conditions and wages were much better than what they had before. If they weren't, they wouldn't have worked there and would have kept doing what they were doing before. You sit on your ivory tower constructed by the sacrifices of many (and yes, that includes the so-called "robber barons") while snubbing your nose at those very same people. That makes you an elitist snob.
shanedk 3 years ago
Decent and fair - bah humbug. I think Dickens might have liked you. You have called me an ivory tower elitist, while being unable to deny that treating workers better in the last half-century has evidently not stopped the wheels of progress - indeed, it seems that we have made more progress in the last few decades than in the whole of your glorious nineteenth century.
47f0 3 years ago
"while being unable to deny that treating workers better in the last half-century has evidently not stopped the wheels of progress"
I've never even TRIED to deny it--that's part of what progress IS!!! My WHOLE POINT was that you cannot judge what they did by our standards today. Think of people living in 2108 and how they might think of our conditions now!
shanedk 3 years ago
But you call THIS progress? Record deficits? Record inflation? Record taxation? Our BEST economic years grow at a FRACTION of the rate they did in the 1800s! The progress we've made is because of the FREE MARKET, NOT because of government. Government just steps in to take the credit, hoping people will be as ignorant and gullible as you are.
shanedk 3 years ago
That's just a teeeny bit disingenuous, don't you think? You want to compare eras when it's convenient to your argument, but shy away when it's not - a reasonable tactic, but unlikely to deceive many who visit your otherwise excellent channel. The "gains" of the 1800s were hugely due to tapping unexploited natural resources - from the 49ers to the Glenpool oil fields to the timber - all about as attributable to economic genius as walking through a bank vault and picking up stray cash.
47f0 3 years ago
"You want to compare eras when it's convenient to your argument, but shy away when it's not"
When have I shied away from it? I've only "shied away" from making value judgements about it. There's a difference between making valid examinations about the rate of economic growth and making value judgements.
shanedk 3 years ago
Okay: if the free market is so terrible and socialism is so wonderful, why have computers become so much more powerful and so much cheaper, given that the computer industry is almost completely unregulated? Why is it only these heavily regulated industries where these supposed problems of the free market show up?
shanedk 3 years ago
Words in my mouth my friend. I'll clarify. Pure socialists are as naive as pure free marketeers. Both assume a human ideal that reality and history just don't justify. Free marketeers assume that as CEO of a car company, that I will have the decency to spend $12 per unit fixing a bad muffler bracket so when you're hit by a drunk driver, that bracket won't rip open a gas tank and incinerate your family. But that's not the case. When the dollar is the only value, your fammily doesn't matter to me.
47f0 3 years ago
"Both assume a human ideal that reality and history just don't justify."
The free market assumes NO human ideal. That's a Socialist LIE. The free market is an evolutionary process of bottom-up organization, and the Socialists are just like the Creationists in that they just cannot accept this happening without a top-down authority to control it.
shanedk 3 years ago
Where's the lie, shanedk? You propose that the best we can do is social darwinism, the law of the jungle, red in tooth in fang. I would contend that real natural darwinism has given us a better brain and keener sense of the social contract, and that you are, in some degree, socialist, and that the matter up for debate is just how socialist you are. Do you propose to dig and pave your own roads, for example?
47f0 3 years ago
"Where's the lie, shanedk?"
Oh, I've heard it for years: "The free market assumes that people will be 100% good and rational all the time." It's NOT true. It's not even MOSTLY true. It only "assumes" that people tend to act as they are incentivized to act. And that seems pretty much a tautology.
shanedk 3 years ago
"When the dollar is the only value, your fammily doesn't matter to me."
Then explain why practically every electronic device made in the last 100+ years was certified for safety at the manufacturers' expense by UL or some other similar body, even when there were no government regulations whatsoever.
shanedk 3 years ago
(thanks for copying my "fammily" typo verbatim ;-)
The UL is actually a great case - every crackpot out there was making dangerous electrical devices. Houses were burning down and people were getting electrocuted. Only when staring down the barrel of impending legislation did it suddenly become a great idea to start policing their own industry. Legislation doesn't have to be enacted to be a powerful deterrent and regulatory force - one that the free marketeers would deny.
47f0 3 years ago
"Only when staring down the barrel of impending legislation"
WHAT impending legislation? This was BEFORE the Progressive Era! It started as a result of what was shown in the Chicago World's Fair and someone saw a profit motive for it. (Yes, the UL--GASP!!--makes a profit!)
shanedk 3 years ago
Computers are more powerful and cheaper for two very different reasons. Reason one (more powerful) is that we still have a development edge - barely. But that development will continue long after our children have been dumbed down by creationist classrooms - just in other countries. Reason two of cheaper is that we don't regulate - freeing companies to put American production on parity with third-world workers. You can't buy a cheaper computer when your job's been outsourced to Indonesia.
47f0 3 years ago
In other words, because of the FREE MARKET. Yes.
shanedk 3 years ago
Interesting thing is, NO insurance company EVER denied coverage for a pre-existing condition before the Federal government started meddling in health care!
You can't look at a problem CAUSED by government meddling and say that the cure is MORE government meddling!
shanedk 3 years ago
About a year and a half ago, I was hit by a drunk driver. My kids and I were hospitalized and my wife killed. Since then, I've had to do through five different surgeries and continuous physical therapy. So don't tell me I don't know anything about it.
You ALWAYS know someone is being bogus when they resort to their personal experience rather than the data.
shanedk 3 years ago
shanedk -
I would never call your pain, and your experience bogus. I thought you were a better man than that. Not the first time I've been wrong.
47f0 3 years ago
I called your CONCLUSIONS bogus because they're based on sloppy thinking, as I have elucidated. If you don't want to consider that, then that's your problem, not mine. So don't try to make it MY character flaw.
shanedk 3 years ago
shanedk, you're clearly a good and decent man - but you believe in human decency far more than I have ever had reason to. I am utterly convinced that there are sociopaths, people utterly lacking in anything we would call decency, who would have absolutely no problem with you and your children dying if it made for a better quarterly stock statement - and that's the cream that the pure free market model rises to the top.
47f0 3 years ago
What you BELIEVE is irrelevant. There's only what the evidence shows. But your admittedly misanthropic mindset explains quite well how you've come to this fallacious reasoning, and how you've come to regard government as the solution to all our problems even with the profoundly pathetic track record it has.
shanedk 3 years ago
Congress voted itself socialized health care... for life.
They seem to like it.
Along with every other western nation that has it.
SaganAppreciationSoc 4 years ago
Uh, no, they didn't. In fact, they EXEMPTED themselves from it. Same in Canada, the UK, and other countries. The politicians want US to have that kind of system, but THEY don't want any part of it.
shanedk 4 years ago
Info on FEHBP: tscl dot org/NewContent/101421.asp
"In 2000, the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare ended with no agreement on a proposal to reform Medicare along lines similar to the FEHBP plans. The so-called "premium support" model would essentially privatize Medicare...Senator John Breaux (D-LA) introduced legislation in 2001 to reform Medicare along these lines but it remains in committee."
shanedk 4 years ago
Gee, i know a congressman, and he says they get effectively get free healthcare for life.
Anyway, every Canadian i've ever talked with has been happy with their system. And i've talked to a lot.
SaganAppreciationSoc 4 years ago
There are a LOT who aren't. Check out the website nomorewaiting dot info, as well as the 20/20 special "Sick in America."
As a Sagan fan, you should know that anecdotes are scientifically and statistically worthless.
shanedk 4 years ago
They also force us into Social Security, while exempting themselves and giving themselves a lucrative pension scheme. When they talk about Socialized Medicine or other Socialist programs, they don't mean for THEM; they're talking about "you people."
shanedk 4 years ago
This is absolutely brilliant, thank you I will download the letter AND pass this along!
This is exciting, it's a win solution.
cherrielane 4 years ago
This idea is just like the Fair Tax, one of the best ideas ever to see the Congressional floor, but it'll never happen the governmental already has too much control to let it happen, sorry to be pessimist...
subach 4 years ago
Actually, the Fair Tax is a terrible fraud, because (despite claims to the contrary) it DOESN'T repeal the Income Tax and is HORRIBLY regressive.
We can repeal the Income Tax and replace it with NOTHING, as long as we get the government back to its Constitutional functions. Without the Income Tax, the government would still have the revenues it did in 1998.
shanedk 4 years ago
Sounds great. One hidden problem is charity care. If you don't have insurance and walk into a hospital bleeding to death they are obliged to help you. Even if you have no way of paying. A HUGE number of hospital cases are charity care. To keep hospitals from going bankrupt the government funds this care. It is a secret hidden tax on us. If we could make health care more affordable, more people would have it, charity care would go way down, and it would actually save us money.
cdk007 4 years ago
Well, before the 1960s when government started meddling in health care, we had free clinics and charity hospitals everywhere. Charity care wasn't the problem then that it is now.
This bill will probably help ease the cost of charity care, but it won't be a solution for it. But that's no reason to not support the bill.
shanedk 4 years ago
Shane,
I currently can't afford health insurance if I am to continue feeding and housing my family. I work two jobs.
Let's say the bill was in effect right now and my wife gets sick.
It appears to me that the only way I can save money on this plan is if I actually have the money to begin with. But I still can't afford healthcare.
This is the main healthcare problem the US has. Perhaps YOU will save money, but HR3343 does nothing to solve the real problem.
qabala 4 years ago
Under this plan, you absolutely could.
Insurance for a family of four runs about $400/month (you can probably get it cheaper by economizing). But look at your paycheck: how much are they taking out per month in taxes? With this plan in effect, you'd just tell your employer to withhold $400 less each month. Then, next April, you'd claim the credit and not owe the taxes.
(Actually, you could do that now, they'd just hit you with the tax bill next April.)
shanedk 4 years ago
If what you claim is true (and yes, I will look at it for myself, I'm just at work and responding on my breaks) that sounds ALMOST like socialized medicine, but with a capitalist twist.
As you've presented it, I like it, but of course I need to read the actual language it is written in.
Thanks for posting this.
qabala 4 years ago
"As you've presented it, I like it, but of course I need to read the actual language it is written in."
Of course; that's why there's a link to the full text in the description.
shanedk 4 years ago
I'd agree with you gabala. I can afford healthcare. Heck, I don't even need insurance because MOST health related issues I could pay for in full and it not put much of a dent in my net worth. But it would devistate most of my employees. I pay for their insurance in full. How would this law would work against them because I might release them from my companies heath insurance because they would get the tax credits.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
Simple:
Instead of paying for their insurance, contribute to their health savings plan.
If you don't, a competitor will. Do you want to keep your workers?
shanedk 4 years ago
In fact, if you think about it, doing this should cut down your administrative costs greatly as you're no longer dealing with a third party, so if anything you should be able to give them a raise!
shanedk 4 years ago
I would still need to cover them with insurance plus the administrative cost of paying into another heath savings plan. My administrative cost would not decrease. Also note that corporations rarely work that way. If a company saves money, it does not pass that savings on to the employees, it goes to profits often to appease shareholders.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
"I would still need to cover them with insurance"
Not if they buy it themselves from their medical savings account. Even absent that, I would have LOVED to have had the choice where I worked to get the $850/month extra and buy my own insurance.
"If a company saves money, it does not pass that savings on to the employees, it goes to profits often to appease shareholders."
That may be more true for the big corporations, but I doubt it's true for the smaller companies.
shanedk 4 years ago
They can already pay into a medical cost plan that they can use on medical expenses tax free in addition to what I pay in insurance. If I'm paying $15000 a month on my employee health saving instead of insurance and an employee needs a cancer treatment, it would not be enough to cover the cost. I would still need to get insurance to cover them.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
But if this bill passes, they'd be able to use the money in the account to buy insurance. And they'd probably get it a lot cheaper than you can. The last job I worked at, the insurance they got cost $850 a month. Now, I have comparable insurance for less than $300/mo. The employer plans have to be one-size-fits-all, which is incredibly inefficient.
shanedk 4 years ago
The only thing I see gained. And it's a good gain, it the ability for the employee themselves to be more flexible with their insurance companies. I'm not convinced it will drive down costs as the more people I get on a single plan, the cheaper my per captia expense.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
You're not on a group plan with a bunch of other businesses?
shanedk 4 years ago
My discount is not effected by the size of any single participating business.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
Rosie.
You rock!
Full health. You wouldn't be in the Vegas area, would you?
qabala 4 years ago
Thanks gabala. I run a very different type of company. Our books are open, we don't even have hierarchies, and we don't have sick days or vacation, just take what you want when you want it. We are all responsible grown ups here. It wouldn't work well for most companies but mine consists of extremely well educated people and it works very well for the company. But at the moment, we are not in Vegas but we have conferences there.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
I think such a model might work for more companies than one might think. I can see it breaking down once the company reaches a certain size, though.
shanedk 4 years ago
I can too... at least the hierarchy. The open books would last quite a bit longer but the choose your own day should scale indefinitely. However, if my company grows to the point of needing closed books, it's time to scale down the business. In addition, if we out grow the hierarchy, it would put up red flags that we are growing to the point where quality would start to be effected and we need to scale down and increase prices significantly.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
Shane, this has degenerated quickly. I am not interested in you shouting at me in caps, calling me a socialist (or other names) and refusing to listen to or comprehend what I am saying. I am not arguing or "debating" this issue; I am trying to have a discussion with a person I thought was reasonable, but you are consistently avoiding my points and making "baseless assertions" of your own.
Save your vitriol and keep your condescension: I have no need for any of it.
Grow up and I'll come back.
ren5311 4 years ago
I am NOT calling you names. I am trying to point out the problems with your claims, which you haven't done the first thing to substantiate. Apparently you can't separate that from a personal attack.
My assertions are NOT baseless. I have the EVIDENCE behind what I say. Those studies are REAL. The only thing you seem to be able to do is deny the evidence.
shanedk 4 years ago
Nice to see someone speak so clearly. Just like with the military industrial complex, health care has been set up to line the pockets of corporate bodies with tax payer money...
I wish I could do something to help you out, but without being a US citizen I don't have a representative to pressure...
ExoditeTyr 4 years ago
You could donate to DownsizeDC. Just a thought.
shanedk 4 years ago
Thats true... This time I'll actually be able to, unlike when I tried to donate to a political candidate...
ExoditeTyr 4 years ago
I hope that this "Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act" will be ratified -- just to get the chance to observe the differences to our German "Gesundheitssystem" we are having trouble financing.
Are there already live cases of a working health care free market anywhere in the world?
leporidus 4 years ago
The closest is the US before the government started meddling. Insurance was one of the lower monthly bills for families, there were no such things as "preexisting conditions," and free clinics and charity hospitals were everywhere.
shanedk 4 years ago
Recently a Dutch member of government went to Harlem, NY to gain ideas on how to improve sloppy neighbourhoods in a short time. She really gained ideas and I support the initiative. I think US members of government should come to Holland to see how universal health care can and does work.
uthamal 4 years ago
Average wait time for surgery in Holland: 4 months.
This would have delayed my recovery by a YEAR, and very likely resulted in my right arm being PERMANENTLY FROZEN.
No, thank you.
shanedk 4 years ago
The important thing is that the poor of Holland can get needed healthcare. It is all a matter of prioritization:
Emergency procedures like by-pass can happen immediately, while nonemergency procedures like like fixing knees can be put on the backburner for a few months.
Holland is a free country, so the rich could go to a private hospital to get their knees fixed the next day, if they do not want to wait. Indeed, the rich can even have elective cosmetic surgery, at their own expense.
Walabio 4 years ago
"Emergency procedures like by-pass can happen immediately, while nonemergency procedures like like fixing knees can be put on the backburner for a few months."
Again, that would have meant me completely losing the use of my right arm. It came close enough as it was. I'm GLAD I could get the surgery relatively quickly. And no, I'm NOT rich, nor do I have good insurance.
shanedk 4 years ago
The point is that you could go private for your low priority-procedure, which is what you must have done since we do not have universal healthcare. Only the poor or cheap would have to wait months while emergency procedures have their emergency procedures firstly.
For the poor, eventually getting nonemergency medical procedures is better than not getting it at all. ¿Have you ever had to hobble around on a probably broken ankle for months until it healed by itself, without medical care?
Walabio 4 years ago
No, and neither has anyone else. It's a crime to withhold emergency treatment (like for broken bones) in this country for inability to pay. Did you not know that?
shanedk 4 years ago
If I would break mine ankle again, I would. I got a bill for 2k$ for that. I cannot afford that. If it would happen again, I would put on the 200$-brace made of cheap plastic, made in Mexico I got last time and hobble around until it heals.
By the way, this would make a great anticreationvideo:
Human ankles are unintelligently designed. The are easy to sprain and break. It would be better to fuse the tarsals into a simple hinge-joint like the dinosauria. Just look at the ankle of an Ostrich.
Walabio 4 years ago
It is a good idea, but insufficient. we need a social safety-net. It would not help people like me:
I am uninsurable. No HMO will take me. I have a pre-existing condition. I am diabetic. If I would have an heart-attack and need immediate bypass or die within a week, I would die. It is that simple.
Imagine an optional tax of 5% of income going into a medical care for the opt-ins. That would be like insurance that cannot reject people for pre-existing conditions. I could get my by-pass.
Walabio 4 years ago
"I am uninsurable. No HMO will take me. I have a pre-existing condition."
Did you know that "preexisting conditions" were unheard of until government started meddling in health care? Then the prices started going way up, so insurance companies could no longer afford it.
Read "Healing Our World" by Dr. Mary Ruwart.
shanedk 4 years ago
If we change the laws to force insurers to take everyone and charge them all the same and carryout medical procedures doctors deem necessary, then I am for it.
Walabio 4 years ago
Actually, that would just make everything cost MORE. You're removing the incentive to economize even further. That's what's gotten us into this mess to begin with!
shanedk 4 years ago
If you cannot force the insurer to insure people with pre-existing conditions, it will not. an opt-in tax 5% of income for the uninsured would cover the uninsurable.
The fact is tens of millions of working people would have to fend for themselves, under the proposed system. Your system is great for people without pre-existing conditions, but leaves double-digit percents of the US-population behind.
Walabio 4 years ago
"If you cannot force the insurer to insure people with pre-existing conditions, it will not."
They only do that because the care is so expensive. Get the price back down to where it was, and they'll start doing it again.
shanedk 4 years ago
It will never be profitable for the insurers to insure everyone. Healthcare is a basic human right. If one does not have good health, one has nothing. Allowing those who cannot get insurance to place 5% of their income into an opt-in healthcare-fund would close the whole in the safety-net. ¿Why do you oppose letting the uninsurable do this? It would not hurt you.
Walabio 4 years ago
"It will never be profitable for the insurers to insure everyone."
They came VERY close to it before the government started meddling.
"Allowing those who cannot get insurance to place 5% of their income into an opt-in healthcare-fund"
They'd be MUCH better off putting that money in the account mentioned above where they'd get the interest. They could then get a major medical with special dispensation for any preexisting conditions, pay for the rest out of the account, and come out WAY ahead.
shanedk 4 years ago
That would not help those needing healthcare now.
Walabio 4 years ago
It absolutely would help millions of them. Pretending otherwise in the face of the evidence is just disingenuous. And as I said, this won't cost the taxpayers a PENNY.
shanedk 4 years ago
It is like home-insurance versus an emergency-account (EA):
My parents made payments to the insurance for almost 30 years until a fire cause ~ 20K$ in damage. They could have put that money into an (EA). ¿Why did they not? Because they wanted to rebuild if something bad would happen no matter when the bad thing happened. If that fire would have happened the first year and destroyed the house, an (EA) would have done them no good because it would have very little money at that time.
Walabio 4 years ago
Continued (ran out of characters):
About the taxpayers, if it would be an opt-in for the uninsurable, it would not cost you.
Walabio 4 years ago
That would be the purpose of the major medical. Get one with a high deductible and it's pretty cheap. Then you just keep at least the deductible amount in your savings account.
shanedk 4 years ago
The uninsurable cannot get medical insurance at all, thus the adjective "Uninsurable".
Walabio 4 years ago 2
The more the price goes down, the fewer people will be uninsurable. That's what you need to understand. It's government intervention that's made the price skyrocket. We need to reverse that.
shanedk 4 years ago
¿Can you guarantee that everyone will be insured? If you can I am for it. I just cannot imagine a uninsured member of the working poor, with cancer, diabetes, and heartdisease getting insurance the day after this bill becomes law. Honestly, ¿do you?
Walabio 4 years ago
No one can guarantee anything. A LOT of people get left out in Socialized Medicine, too. But it would be a lot cheaper, and as I said before government meddling we had free clinics and charity hospitals everywhere, so people who couldn't get insurance still had options.
shanedk 4 years ago
> "No one can guarantee anything."
¿What will the abandoned do for healthcare?
> "A LOT of people get left out in Socialized Medicine, too."
¿Do you have a citation for this? I know that healthcare is prioritized so that people needing emergency heartsurgery can get it immediately, but people needing hip-replacement must wait a few months. The important thing is that people even poor people get emergency-bypasses, and people even poor people eventually get new hips.
Walabio 4 years ago
There are LOTS of cases! If you haven't seen any, you haven't done your research. Look at the 20/20 special, "Sick in America," or look at the website nomorewaiting dot info.
It isn't "prioritized"--they all do that, it's called "triage"--it's RATIONED. And yes, in this country, the poor DO get the emergency bypasses and other treatments. IT'S AGAINST THE LAW TO DO OTHERWISE. I've already told you that, and here you are making the same wrong claim again.
shanedk 4 years ago
> "It isn't "prioritized"--they all do that, it's called "triage"--it's RATIONED. "
Nothing is wrong with rationing scarce resources. The rich can still get their facelifts if they pay for them. socialized medicine saved tens of million of english from sexual genital mutilation. If people want medically unnecessary procedure like facelifts, they should pay for them themselves. People should be forbidden from mutilating children.
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Walabio 4 years ago
...
> "And yes, in this country, the poor DO get the emergency bypasses and other treatments."
I never heard of anyone getting free cardiac-by-pass. It is my understand that the go not oxygen and bloodthinners until they die.
Walabio 4 years ago
If it's an emergency procedure, they HAVE to provide it BY LAW.
Now, knock off the misinformation! Go do some research and inform yourself.
shanedk 4 years ago
> "If it's an emergency procedure, they HAVE to provide it BY LAW."
> "Now, knock off the misinformation! Go do some research and inform yourself."
I have never heard about free cancer or heart-surgery. I know that those who cannot pay, die. I know that hospitals dump patients who cannot pay. EMTALA merely says that they have to stabilize. After stabilization, the hospital tries to transfer the patient. Usually, the patient dies. Basically, the patient waits until the patient dies.
Walabio 4 years ago
"I know that those who cannot pay, die. I know that hospitals dump patients who cannot pay."
Bogus scare tactics. They do all they can for people like that. And if we stop the bogus government intervention that makes those kinds of treatments scarce, they'd be able to do MUCH more.
shanedk 4 years ago
Walabio watches too much Scrubs.
AJComixII 3 years ago
"Nothing is wrong with rationing scarce resources."
But it doesn't NEED to be scarce! That's the point! How scarce are computers or DVD players?
shanedk 4 years ago
>> "Nothing is wrong with rationing scarce resources."
> "But it doesn't NEED to be scarce! That's the point! How scarce are computers or DVD players?"
If one's insurance-company covers facelifts whenever one wants, one's bill payments will be huge. It makes since that one should only fund medically necessary procedure. If one wants at be a Michael Jackson, one should pay for one's facelifts out of pocket.
Walabio 4 years ago
Hillary doesn't like it? I'M IN!!!
korwinblue 4 years ago 3
OK Shane, I'll look into it.
h8uall66 4 years ago
Sounds good. Thanks for the video.
Philosophobia 4 years ago
One of the problems is that it comes in the form of a tax refund. Most people that need the health reform can't afford to pay for the medical treatment because they are living pay check to pay check. The client health anomaly would essentially be untreatable for most of society. If a person is making 40k per year, and they are hit for a surgery that costs them 20k, a tax refund is not going to take care of it.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
But since it would allow EVERYONE who cannot currently afford insurance and who has no other option (such as Medicare) to afford it, then they WOULD be on insurance and they could then pay for it.
shanedk 4 years ago
"it would allow EVERYONE who cannot currently afford insurance and who has no other option (such as Medicare) to afford it"
I think this statement is baseless. Providing a tax credit does not somehow put hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in a person's pocket each month.
Plus, you have not dealt with those who refuse to buy insurance and then burden the system by overloading the ERs.
I'm in med school, so this is an important issue to me, and I don't think HR3343 cuts it. UHC does.
ren5311 4 years ago
"I think this statement is baseless."
It's not. It's the conclusion of two separate and independent studies, one from the GAO and one from the Treasury Department.
"Providing a tax credit does not somehow put hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in a person's pocket each month."
Actually, it does exactly that!
"Plus, you have not dealt with those who refuse to buy insurance and then burden the system by overloading the ERs."
I SAID this wouldn't solve every problem.
shanedk 4 years ago
["Providing a tax credit does not somehow put hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in a person's pocket each month."]
"Actually, it does exactly that!"
Except that it doesn't. Tax deductions/credits cost America money in lost revenue (so, in a sense, you're still subsidizing it), and the money doesn't materialize for most taxpayers monthly when it's needed to pay insurance premiums. At best, you're going to subsidize those who already have insurance and the ones without are no better off.
ren5311 4 years ago
"Tax deductions/credits cost America money in lost revenue"
Socialist twaddle. It's saying that people get to keep more of THEIR money that THEY worked to earn to pay for their own health care. It's incredibly dishonest to say that that's somehow taking money from the rest of us.
What problem do you have with MILLIONS of people being able to afford health insurance who can't now?
shanedk 4 years ago
"It's saying that people get to keep more of THEIR money that THEY worked to earn to pay for their own health care."
Are you ignorant of economics or simply intent on labeling me a socialist?
ren5311 4 years ago
I am VERY well versed in economics. And your idea is 100% Socialist, whether you realize it or not. Saying that letting people keep more of their money instead of taxing them is the equivalent of taking money from "society" is absolutely 100% Socialist.
shanedk 4 years ago
"What problem do you have with MILLIONS of people being able to afford health insurance who can't now?"
I believe you're the one who has to answer that question.
I've already listed several points why HR3343 wouldn't lead to "MILLIONS" (emphasis in original) more people being able to afford health insurance. You are talking about a subsidy for those that have insurance while those without are left unable to afford the investment to get your "credit".
ren5311 4 years ago
"I've already listed several points why"
No, you haven't. You've made baseless assertions. Whereas I have two independent studies backing me up.
"You are talking about a subsidy"
No, I'm not; I'm talking about letting people keep more of THEIR money. You've been totally brainwashed if you can't see that.
It's THEIR money. Let THEM keep it to buy insurance.
shanedk 4 years ago
I don't know alot about this insurance stuff, or the words you used in the video, but I do know how the program could put many into the people's pockets as you said, based on the video's content.
You said people would keep the interest, (lots more money for us), would lower prices (even more money for us) and up quality (less chance of complications, less time spend going through the hoops of standard insurance, for less money lost).
You got win. :P
Surhotchaperchlorome 3 years ago
Why don't you look at Socialized Medicine (which is all UHC is) objectively? Look at the long wait times for medical procedures, the people who have to come to America for health care or DIE, or even just look at the rationing that's already taking place under Medicare/Medicaid.
UHC will only make things WORSE. FAR worse.
shanedk 4 years ago
"Why don't you look at Socialized Medicine (which is all UHC is) objectively?"
I don't care what you call it. Demonize it if it makes you feel better.
"Look at the long wait times for medical procedures,"
You can't compare foreign countries' health care to ours.
"the people who have to come to America for health care or DIE,"
Or the people who go to Canada or die?
"or even just look at the rationing that's already taking place under Medicare/Medicaid."
Ration by need or ration by greed.
ren5311 4 years ago
"You can't compare foreign countries' health care to ours."
Dishonest avoidance of the issue. These countries USE UHC--the very same system the politicians want to foist on us now. And they DON'T want to do that because it benefits US, but because it benefits THEM.
shanedk 4 years ago
"These countries USE UHC--the very same system the politicians want to foist on us now."
Democracy in the U.S. does not work the same as democracy in other countries. UHC would follow the same principles, but would not have the same effects. The US healthcare system is fundamentally different than Holland, Britain, or Canada. If you don't admit that, you are either being obtuse, overly simplistic or willfully ignorant.
ren5311 4 years ago
And yet, you cannot give me ONE SINGLE REASON why Socialized Medicine would be any different here. You just assert it, with NOTHING to back it up.
shanedk 4 years ago
"And they DON'T want to do that because it benefits US, but because it benefits THEM."
Prove it. This is conspiracy nonsense.
UHC benefits the lower class who can't afford health care and the growing segment of the middle class who can't afford it and aren't covered under the woefully inadequate Medicaid. It could be funded for a fraction of the cost of the war (not a fair comparison, I know) and the savings in overhead for a single payer system would drastically improve efficiency.
ren5311 4 years ago
"Prove it. This is conspiracy nonsense."
No, it's not; it's just politics. But it's common for people with absolutely nothing to back up their insanity to wrongly mislabel something a "conspiracy theory."
Politicians advocate policies that benefit politicians. It happens ALL the time, and there's NOTHING conspiratorial about it. You're either completely brainwashed or you're an unashamed liar.
shanedk 4 years ago
We already get tax credit for significant medical related expenses. It doesn't help much if the expense must be paid in advanced or if the expense goes beyond taxable income. Insurance companies would still have to take up that slack by taking money from the collective.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
"We already get tax credit for significant medical related expenses."
Actually, you only get a deduction, and it has a threshold of 7.5% (which this act would remove, BTW).
"Insurance companies would still have to take up that slack by taking money from the collective."
Yes, because that's how insurance companies work. But we wouldn't be as dependent on them as we are now.
shanedk 4 years ago
Yes it is a deduction... Yes, it would make 'some' of us less dependent on them. But I still do not see how it would aid the people that need it the most.
RosieDesire 4 years ago
Well, even at the worst I don't see it hurting them.
Besides, even if they can't benefit from it directly, they might indirectly from the lower costs that would result.
shanedk 4 years ago